Sunday, January 18, 2009

NEW Catalog Chatter...

Here is my version of the new catalog chatter for the Spring/Summer Stampin' UP! Idea Book and Catalog. First of all it is a lovely catalog. The samples are pretty, the color combos are very spring like and refreshing. I like some of the out of the box ideas they presented for using the Sizzix dies and other home decor. I also like a lot of the card samples as far as ways to use the stamps and designer papers. Very cute.

I love all the Sizzix dies and the exclusive dies. Love the cupcake Sizzlits set, as well as the Sizzlits strip with the alphabets. I could see that being very useful for scrapbooking and for tags on gifts and sentiments on cards. Very nice. Love the Embosslits. I would highly recommend the Big Shot for it's versatility and the ability to use Cuttlebug, Nestabilities, and other products with it. Very good sturdy and easy to use machine. Well worth the price.

I like some of the new designer papers. A lot of it is a little to "old" styled for me and too Victorian or too many birds. The flamingo paper is icky, and I thought they could have made the paper to go with the Retro Style line a bit more bright--too much green and bland. I do like the Parisian Breeze designer specialty paper as they contain the colors in my new living room.

I like the masculine specialty paper To The Nines under that offering too. I like the color combo of artichoke, sage, chocolate and kraft. Very calming and masculine.

I love the Manhattan collection esp. Manhattan flowers. Won't be getting it, but I love the look, textures and colors there. Very clean, timeless and crisp. Very classy looking.

I like the Cheep Talk set, as I can see fun colorful easy cards there. Love the branch in that set and the pear (as I have a Papertrey Wedding set sentiment that would go awesome with that), and the birds are not too bad. Definitely better than the chipboard birds or the large Good Friend set.

As far as the rest of the sets, ummm I think they are quite boring, already done, or maybe once again just the same old repackaged as somehow being new. That is not new. I will be sticking to the timeless look of my Papertrey sets I have bought these past two years. I am trying to find stamps anymore that have a more timeless classic look, rather than the cutesy trendy look. I am not one to color images in and if I am going to stamp an image with multiple colors, I rather like the Papertrey acrylic stamps for doing that more easily. I still love all the Stampin' UP! cardstock, colors, inks, accessories, designer papers and such and I think they still have quite a strong offering of those that are a good value. I love their ribbons for the value they are. However, I have become quite disenchanted with the stamps. There just isn't that fresh new feel. Some are creepy retro look, others are too sketchy, and others still are too cutesy, and most have already been done, they just have a slightly different look. And once again, TOO MANY FLOWER SETS!!!! Can we not be a little more creative as there are tons of images out there besides flowers. And again, where are the more masculine offerings. Do they think we only give cards to girls? I digress.

I am trying to weed out those stamps that I bought cause I liked what somebody else did with them, but really I just don't use them or rather I just don't have the time to do anything with them. I am getting rid of anything that doesn't have anything to do with my boys (the sports, cars, tools, etc.), or anything that isn't occasion specific along the lines of babies, pregnancies, holidays that I just don't use. I have quite a few for sale below. Check them out.

I have weeded out my flower sets and have kept those that are timeless and again, easy to use and work well with other things.

I hope to post some pictures of my home decor I worked on last month. They turned out awesome. I am so excited to get them on the walls in our house. We are maybe 3 weeks out now. Yea!!

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MELISSA SIBERT

I am a wife to my wonderful husband and a stay at home mom to my two precious boys. I am also a professionally trained pastry chef. I am an Independent Consultant for Jordan Essentials. I love to spend time with my family. A good book, some uplifting but peppy music, baking, or some time paper crafting helps me unwind after a busy day with my boys.

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